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Pune Municipal Corporation vs. Sus Road Baner Vikas Manch & Ors.

Not available · 2024 INSC 682Decided 12 Sept 2024
Not available
Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra · Justice K.V. Viswanathan

Background

A resident welfare body, Sus Road Baner Vikas Manch, complained to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that a Garbage Processing Plant (GPP) run by a private concessionaire for Pune Municipal Corporation at Baner was polluting the area and violating waste-management rules. The NGT ordered the plant shut and relocated, and allowed the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board to recover environmental compensation. The Municipal Corporation and the plant operator appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that the plot had been earmarked for a garbage processing plant in Pune's development plan as far back as 2002, and that the plant's authorisation, environmental clearance, and start of operations all pre-dated the 2016 Solid Waste Management Rules, meaning the older 2000 Rules, not the 2016 Rules, governed the plant's compliance, contrary to what the NGT had assumed. On this and other technical findings, the Court held the NGT's closure order could not be sustained and set aside both the closure order and the order dismissing the review application, also dismissing the original complaint. However, recognising the residents' genuine concerns, the Court did not leave them without protection. It directed the Corporation and the operator to comply with a list of scientific improvements (odour control systems, covered waste-reject areas, green buffer plantation, etc.) recommended by an environmental research institute, and ordered a biannual environmental audit of the plant going forward.

Lesson Learnt

A facility's legal compliance must be judged against the rules in force when it was set up, not rules that came later; and even when a shutdown order is overturned on technical/legal grounds, courts can still impose binding environmental safeguards to protect nearby residents.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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